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Two Boardman businesses fall for same electric scam
By ROBERT CONNELLY
YOUNGSTOWN
Two area businesses are the victim of a scam by people claiming to be with Ohio Edison.
Barry Dyngle’s Pub, 1801 S. Raccoon Road in Austintown, and Antone’s, 700 Boardman-Canfield Road, Boardman, were both called Monday between 4 and 5 p.m., and the scam was the same. Both companies were contacted by a man named James.
Antone’s is out $1,008 and Barry Dyngle’s, $988. Both reported the incidents to their respective police departments Tuesday.
Both restaurants received calls that they owed money on their electric bills and told if it wasn’t paid that same day through loadable MoneyPak Green Dot prepaid debit cards, the electricity to the businesses would be shut off. The scammers claimed to be from FirstEnergy Ohio Edison.
Both restaurants had employees buy two $500 MoneyPak cards and read the bar code numbers to the scammers, who told them they were now in good standing with their electric bills. Later, employees of both restaurants called FirstEnergy directly and found out they had been scammed.
The Austintown police report said the Barry Dyngle’s employee who alerted authorities was told by Ohio Edison staff that there were similar reported incidents recently.
FirstEnergy spokesman Chris Eck said that when his company calls a customer to discuss payment options, “we would never demand they buy a prepaid debit or credit card to pay their bill.”
Eck also said if a customer is going to have power shut off, they “will have received several notices beforehand and will have received notice by mail” of when the shutoff will occur.
According to a news release from FirstEnergy sent Tuesday, the MoneyPak Green Dot scam has happened from all of the company’s service areas from Ohio to New Jersey.
Eck said, “We’ve been seeing [this scam] for a number of years, and it comes and goes, but there seems to be an uptick in these types of scams.”
He also said that if a customer gets a suspicious call that they should call the customer-service number that appears on their utility bill.